Watchword Is My Watchword
by Dearest's Historic Cadre
Summary: For the other point of view, visit the Angry Classicist, and be lost in our mangling of the Discworld Night Watch.
1. The Fabulous Dr Boldcastle

"I would like you to repeat after me... _I am not a mad-eyed dribbling bloodsucker."_

_"I am not a mad-eyed dribbling bloodsucker."_

_"I do not relish chewing the throats of saturnine young men."_

_"I do not relish chewing the throats of saturnine young men."_

_"People are not watching me and mentally sharpening stakes as I walk past."_

_"People are not watching me and mentally sharpening stakes as I walk past."_

"Do you believe everything you have just said?"

"_Do you-_ oh. Yes. Yes I do."

"You sound hesitant."

"Yes I do!"

"And quiet."

"YES I DO!"

"Excellent!" There was a brisk snap as a stylish, cruel black notebook was shut sharply on some rather unpleasant notes. "I think you've made wonderful progress, my lady..."

"Oh, I'm Ms Doyle now, doctor. Prudence Doyle."

A brisk nod from a stylish, cruel head of black hair. "Very apt, Ms Doyle. Very apt."

The vampiress got up from the couch in a movement of embarrassing fluidity and beauty, remembering to stumble as she stood up in her sensible, ugly beige shoes. "Is everything alright, Dr Boldcastle?" she asked, reaching into a pocket to bring out an expensive fountain pen and cheque book. "Only your voice seems higher than usual, you see. You do not, perchance, have a sore," here the newly christened Ms Doyle appeared to struggle, before settling on, "voice box?"

Dr Boldcastle bowed from the waist. "A minor cold, your ladysh- Ms Doyle. I have no doubt it will pass with alacrity."

Writing out the astronomical sum, the vampiress nodded her head. "Y-ees," she said uncertainly. "I think perhaps I am strong enough now... Maybe in our next session we can dispense of the mask and gloves? Your flesh will no longer tempt to me to slavering, gibbering insanity, I think."

"And I hope and pray, dear Ms Doyle. As you wish, I will come naked of face and hands next week. But I will bring the cattle-prod as a precaution. And would you like me to stop wearing infernally strong cologne?"

"Ah, no... close environments and the scent of human flesh teamed together are still..." Again Ms Doyle trailed off, trailed her hand up to her bony chin and wiped a glistening trail of saliva from it.

"As you wish, as you wish," purred the doctor, taking the cheque smoothly. "And now, good day Ms Doyle. Same time next week... pray don't be late... Goodbye, gods speed..."

Dr Boldcastle watched the vampiress trot off down the high-rent street. When the doctor was quite sure Ms Doyle had vanished off to whatever sad, desperate hostel she called home, he drew the blinds, ambled over to the desk and made some sort of obscene noise into the mouthpiece.

"Edna? Kindly cancel the remainder of my appointments today. I believe I have a cold coming on."

_Then_ Dr Boldcastle locked the door and faded the light, and only _then_ did he open the cupboard which he had jammed shut some two hours previously with a chair.

Out tumbled a skinny, harrassed man in an exquisitely cut suit, coincidentally a carbon copy of the one Dr Boldcastle, masked and gloved and wrapped in heinously strong cologne, wore now.

"Barbarian!" barked the cupboard man. Actually, owing to the gag, it sounded more like, "Mm-mhm-mh-mm!" but Dr Boldcastle was clearly an expert of Gag.

"Now now, Dr Boldcastle," said Dr Boldcastle kindly to the cupboard man. "You'll get your cheque... and look, you didn't even do any work for it! I'll cash it directly, and it'll go straight to your account."

The cupboard man, who was indeed the real Dr Boldcastle, gave the interloper a furious look.

"It is the signature that I am interested in," continued the interloper, ignoring the muffled bubbling of hatred from the gagged doctor. "Which is why, when I took the cheque from the dear diddy vampiress, I took the precaution of pinching the receipt underneath too." With a modest little gesture, the interloper waved the receipt like a flag. "Enjoy the cash, Dr Boldcastle. I hear it brings nothing but misery."

With that little moral falling from the hidden lips like a drop of acid onto a bare belly, the interloper made one last elegant bow and vaulted backwards out of the window.


	2. Opium Attic

One of the places one can always rest assured will be quiet, peaceful and soft if one takes up lodgings there, is the top floor of an opium den. Aside from the occasional gasp of inspiration, transcendent snore or agonised, subdued moan, the silence that permeates the lodgings in the attic of an opium den is seldom dispersed.

The attic was also surprisingly well-furnished. There was a bed, a good large one with an ornate iron bedstead, and a chair of throne-like proportions. The desk was old and battered, but clearly of fine wood, and the wardrobe was an Auriental work of art. The dingy walls were hung with strange and marvellous pictures, hangings and inconographs, and the mirror was vast and decadent. The only piece of modern furniture in there was an oil-lamp, and a disturbingly big dressing table.

Not-Dr Boldcastle was taking off clothing, a task that in most films would require hoarse jazz music, or at the very least someone wailing, "Oooh! Ooo ooooh oh, seeeex-eh," into the soundtrack. The interloper kept sniffing- clearly heinously strong cologne was not to their liking. The suit came off to reveal what looked like something someone had kept wrapped up in a pyramid. Once not-Dr Boldcastle had started untying these however, the general form and shape of the person underneath, sparse though it was, explained why binding up at the chest and padding out at the waist was necessary to mimic the unlucky doctor.

The young woman- for it was indeed a young woman- was thin and small, like a hungry panther cub. Her shoulders were hunched around her slight frame as if she was trying to keep warm. Her skin was papery, in colour and texture, and her eyes were feverish and a little mad. Her hair was shiny and black, wandering absently over her throat and clavicle. She looked pale and surprising and clever.

She changed into a dress just as there was a knock at the door.

"Miss Fitzdare?" asked a hopeful male voice.

She lay back on her bed. "I am not here, Aidan."

There was some nervous guffawing outside. Guffawing was exactly the word- it came with a preliminary intake of air, and a choke, went through various stages of ill-tuned laughter, and ended on a half-swallowed snort. Then the door opened a few optimistic inches. The pale face of a fifteen year old boy appeared in the crack.

"Dad says rent is due today, Miss Fitzdare."

"I paid him yesterday Aidan." She addressed this sentence to the ceiling. A spider was sadly wandering about in a crevice, looking for its web. She felt a little guilty for sweeping it away, until she saw the little bugger start up a new one.

Aidan, hesitating in the doorway, was silent. She sighed. "Come in, Aidan."

He shuffled in. Shuffling did not come naturally to him. He was a tall boy, far too tall for his age or any other, and as alabaster as an idle, pretty girl. The freckles on his upturned nose, the dashing charm of his smile and his twinkly, jailbait eyes did nothing but enhance this image. Aidan had been proposed to twice in the past six months, by well-meaning, myopic middle-aged men. This sort of thing can have a devastating effect on a boy.

As he shuffled closer- as close as he dared- to the bed, she noticed one of his eyes was swollen and a fruitful shade of blue. Aidan's father was a tough, hard-working drug baron who did not take kindly to having a potential pansy for a son.

Noticing this, she realised she was making eye contact. Aidan must have noticed it too, because he shivered like an adolescent and sighed like an adult.

"I joined the Watch, Miss Fitzdare," he confided in her. "I'm going to show Dad. I won't stand for it anymore!" His voice was shaking with the effort of holding all that bravado in.

"Well done, you," she said gloomily, thinking, _Your father is going to tear you limb from limb, lad. He is going to cook your kidneys and make you eat them without any sauce._

He swallowed. "They gave me a badge and everything," he said. "And my own uniform. I'm going to start coppering tomorrow night."

_Unfortunate,_ she thought glumly. _That's the night I have to gate-crash the Watch House to stop Lance-Constable von Humpeding from preventing the meeting of Uberwaldeans for Old Uberwald._

Aidan was talking to her about fame and glory and having your name in the papers in bold print. She lay on her bed, not even nodding occasionally. She felt such courtesy should not be extended to pretty boys, and besides he seemed quite happy to witter on without it. After all, after Miss Dixie Va Va Voom, whose pin-up he had on his wall, Jenny Perkins from the Guild of Merchant's School For Girls a couple of blocks away, and possibly the paperboy (with Aidan you could never be sure), he adored her more than anyone. Just like everyone should.

_I should have been a vampire_, she thought sulkily for the umpteenth time, whilst Aidan revealed his deepest and innermost secrets, which sounded exactly like every other fifteen year old boy's darkest and innermost secrets, really.


	3. Uberwaldeans For Old Uberwald

Commander Vimes was staring at a file in front of him. He stared and stared and stared. It wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't turning into lunch, or a surprised cockatoo, or seventeen notes of music. It was just sitting on his desk. Sooner or later he'd have to read it.

He went out for a few hours, shouted at people, cursed, missed an appointment with Lord Vetinari, and secretly did the Cable Street beat when he thought no-one was watching.

The sun starting to pack up its things and head for the downside of the horizon. Commander Vimes was back at his desk and the bloody file hadn't moved.

Reluctantly, aware if anyone caught him at it they might think he was setting a precedent and give him more gratuitous reading, he snuck a peek at the first page.

It was headed: _Uberwaldeans for Old Uberwald- Reactions to the League of Temperance, Vetinari's Foreign Policy and the Entente Cordial between Anhk-Morpork and Uberwald_.

He groaned. Anything headed with a title that big meant Further Reading.

The door swished open like a fanfare. Vimes slammed the file shut and leaned on it with his elbows.

"Yes?" he barked, guilt-ridden.

The glowing, ginger giant that was Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson saluted briskly. "You wanted to see us, sir!" Behind him, Sergeant Angua attempted a half-hearted version of the same. She looked tired and tetchy- presumably she had spent a lot of time in Lance-Constable Sally's company.

"Oh- yes." Vimes hesitated, then peeked again at the title, opening the file a miniscule fraction. "Don't grin," he added. "I can _hear_ you grinning, Angua."

"Yesir." Angua sucked at the insides of her cheeks.

"Since you're so cheerful you must be full of snappy answers. What's the Uberwaldeans for Old Uberwald all about?"

"Old order aristocratic Uberwaldeans, sir," Angua said, dryly. Her grin was quite gone as she added, "People like my parents, sir. They want the old days back. For the most part werewolves and vampires."

"Blood-crazed lunatics," Vimes said firmly. "Much of a threat?"

"You've met my parents, Mister Vimes," Angua said woodenly. "Ineffectual, until they get a leader."

"I know what that lack of tone of voice means," Vimes said, grinning horribly and inserting a cigar into said grin. "I know what it means when Vetinari sends me files, when he knows I never read. I also know what it means when I am forced- _forced_, mark you- to take a witch into the Watch, in case of inverted comma magical crimes inverted comma."

He sat back, much satisfied with this little speech.

Pause.

"Please do tell us what it means, sir," said Carrot, politely.

So much for theatricality, thought Vimes gloomily. "They've _got_ a leader, Carrot," he said wearily. "A good'un too, judging by the amount of red pen in this report. And exclamation marks. Have you ever known any of the Patrician's clerak to use emotional punctuation?"

"Not unless they're writing memos about incorrect filing, sir," Angua replied, smiling.


	4. Pretty Woman Attack

It was Lance Constable Downball's unlucky fate to be on desk duty that night. The door of the Watch House exploded open and a startlingly beautiful woman walked in.

Of course, she wasn't _really_ all that beautiful. She looked astonishing, in the most untouchable, lunatic and violent way, which affected Lance Constable Downball in a way he'd never been affected before, mostly because he was a boorish young man who looked for nothing in a woman except a certain willingness to shut up and be talked at. This woman looked as if being talked at was not an option, not even to incessantly compliment her- she'd probably require a lengthy discussion on relative literary value per compliment.

Downball stared at her.

"You," she murmured. "Take me to see Salicia von Humpeding at once."

She must be another vampire, thought Downball in a thoroughly stunned way. The way she looks around the room, the way she carries herself, her gorgeous gorgeous face- oh!

He wobbled with jelly knees and uncomfortable drawers towards the shower rooms. Sally was in there, painting her toenails pink. He knew this because an awful lot of dwarf females had been making a fuss about it- it was some new colour, 'Electric Petunia' or similar. Normally he would have asked the visitor to wait patiently for the requested officer, but all he could think of saying was, "Urrr," and all he could think of doing was obeying, both of which he did now.

"Thank you," the beautiful woman said, bestowing on him a melting, succulent smile that caused an involuntary, "Urrr," to escape Downball's lips. Then she stalked inside.

Indeed, in the shower rooms were Sally the Vampire, the famous Cheery Littlebottom and another female dwarf officer in luminous purple eye make-up. What they saw walk in was- a fairly pretty girl in a very expensive dress, carrying in front of her what was almost entirely padding, with her thick black hair pinned up in an elaborate bun, and a peevish expression on her face.


End file.
